The results of Obamanomics

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And what influence over gas prices does Obamanomics (as silly a term as Reaganomics) have?  The current spike in energy prices has nothing to do with domestic economic policy whatsoever.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

On an inflation adjusted basis, the last tie we had a sustained period with gasoline prices this high was Reagan's first term.  Not only that the historical average in 2010 dollars for the period 1918 to 2010 is $2.39.  As bad as prices have gotten, they still haven't returned to their July 2008 average of $4.00 per gallon.  Nor is the current instability in Libya and the Middle East that are causing the current spike in prices due to Obama. But don't let facts confuse you Carl.  They seemingly never do.

(source used for the facts above)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You are the one who is confused.

I posted the source for the assertion.

No, you posted a link for your data.  Neither your source, nor you gave any reason why there would be a connection for why Obama was responsible beyond the fact that Obama happened to be president at the time.

You merely continue your assertions the Obama is blameless.

No, continuing to point out that you haven't proven your assertions that Obama is the sole or even the primary cause for the rise in gas prices.  By your 'logic', Reagan was to blame for the the equally high gas prices (in inflation adjusted dollars) during his first term as during Obama's term so far.

Oh, and gasoline is over $4.00 a gallon in California.

So gas is significantly more expensive in California than in the nation as a whole.  That most certainly is not news.  I don't know why you bothered with that particular factoid except to mislead.

Oh, and here's something from ABC:

The weekly national average gas price showed the highest price ever during the month of March and the seventh consecutive increase this week, according to the Department of Energy.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/gas-prices-7th-consecutive-weekly-increase-middle-east/story?id=13240889

Judging by the report, they didn't use inflation adjusted dollars, making the comparison between Marches a pretty much a foregone conclusion.  Not that it couldn't be the case even if they did use unflation-adjusted dollars, what with the overseas shocks to the oil market and the trend for increasing gas prices that was established during the Bush years. Absent the sharp drop in gas prices due to the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008, if the rate of increase in gas prices from 2001-2007 was continued into 2011, gas prices would be around $6/gallon today.  Not that I blame Bush anymore than I blame Obama.  Unlike you, I don't see presidents or governments as all-powerful entities that could make everything a utopia if they only followed the right policies.  Nor do I make the mistake of assuming that one can extrapolate current trends as if they will continue without interruption.  It could well be that by Election Day that gas prices will be $7/gallon, or they could be $2/gallon.  I hope they don't go much lower than $2/gallon as I think that could only happen if we had something as bad as the 2008 collapse of the housing bubble happen to us again.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

CARL, you seem to think that anyone who thinks that Obama isn't to blame for everything must believe he is blameless, just as you believe that anyone who doesn't agree with your opinions on how best to secure the border must believe that the border should be unguarded.  You express a point of view that is very black and white with no shades of gray and in which you are the defender of a small pinprick of white in a vast sea of black.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Also, you have suggested NOTHING about securing the border other than criticisms of each and every effort in that area.  So, please provide your example of border security you supposedly support.

To begin with, your emphasis is in the wrong place CARL.  If we're going to get control of the borders, our primary focus needs to be not on fences and the like, but on dealing with the reasons why people want to cross the border illegally in the first place.

1. Employment
An expanded and improved E-Verify system along with an improved passport-quality Social Security Card.  While the government had liked to pretend that Social Security Cards and Numbers aren't to be used for purposes of identification, that ship has long past sailed from port.  That'll help deal with the cheats, but we also need to considerably expand legal immigration, both permanent and temporary.  For instance, I'd like to see the number of professions and people for which a TN visa can be obtained considerably increased.  For example, the Teamsters wouldn't like it, but a TN visa for Mexican or Canadian truck drivers that meet the standards required to obtain a CDL would be fine with me.

2. Drugs
My concern here isn't what happens at the borders, but if we had a rational drug policy, we'd eliminate a lot of the demand for smuggling.  To be clear, marijuana, opiates, and cocaine should be legalized for adult usage just as alcohol and tobacco.  The common denominator for all five drugs is that they originate as agricultural products and require more draconian laws than any free society is willing to impose in order to control by use of law enforcement.  Hence, other means of addressing the problems caused by those drugs are more effective.

Legalizing them deprives organized crime in this country of one of its more lucrative sources of income, and deprives overseas groups we oppose such as the FARC and the Taliban of that source of funds as well.  The effect on the borders of reduced smuggling is secondary.

Another side benefit of cocaine legalization is that it should lead to reduced demand for methamphetamine as well, since the two are similar in their effects (but not entirely the same).
Will what I propose deal with every problem the border has?  Of course not, I don't offer utopian dreams.  There are still persons and items we'll want to keep from crossing the border, but by offering a legal avenue for those it makes no sense to attempt to keep from crossing, we can more easily deal with the residue we don't want.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

CARL, while we seem to have somehow gotten to discussing Obamanomics in your border security thread, and vice versa, I'm going to return my discussion at least to their proper threads.

As will become evident in the coming month, Jeffery Bell LIED!

You believe the most pathetic lies, as long as they come from Obama administration officials.

If you're going to rant, could you at least rant coherently?  I don't know who this Jeffery Bell is, nor did a quick google find anyone relevant.  As for Jeffrey Self (the article you linked to misspelled his name, which I discovered while googling to find out who he is in more detail) who I presume is who you meant to refer to, he's a 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol and while definitely a bureaucrat who had spent six years in Washington before being tapped late last year to head up the newly-formed Joint Field Command, he's not an Obama political appointee, but still in the civil service.

(link - Arizona Daily Star article about him taking command of the JFC which gives some good background info on Jeffrey Self.)

I realize that you are unable to disagree with Obama.

I also realize that you will disagree with me on everything simply to be what you are.

This could create quite the paradox for TF if you ever agree with Obama on anything.

Not much chance about that, Jas.  I don't think CARL will ever agree with Obama.  The way I knew for certain that the March jobs report, while being anemic and still not sufficient, was still something that couldn't be considered bad news was that CARL didn't choose to make any comments on it about how it showed Obama is a failure as president.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As it was, with the March jobs report, since the April jobs report contains positive news, once again CARL will be quiet about it.

Incidentally, the WSJ had a nice little article today about how manufacturing jobs have been seeing slow but steady growth in both 2010 and 2011 after having a steady decline during the 2000s.  I'd give a link to the article, but the WSJ has a paywall.

But here's a link to the BLS website so you can look at the raw numbers yourself:
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If you are interested in data, rather than spin, you can see the data at:

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

Actually, I can't see the data at that link, nor can you.   That's a temporary URL that the BLS server gives for the dataset requested.  That's why I gave the link to the page where you can make the request.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm surprised you missed this bit of economic news, CARL, since it uses your favorite word when it comes to economic news: "unexpectedly".

U.S. Economy: Trade Gap Narrows as Exports Rise to Record
By Alex Kowalski - Jun 9, 2011 5:13 PM ET

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-09/trade-deficit-in-u-s-unexpectedly-narrows-as-oil-auto-imports-decrease.html

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[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We can always count on you to try to find some way to defend Obama.

With you around, I don't need to expend any effort on bashing Obama, since that is the only thing you do with Obama, sometimes with reason, but more often for items that are beyond any president's ability to do anything about.

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The American dollar has been consistently overvalued for a long time now and contributes to our economic problems.  While the good side of having the world's standard currency has been that it has kept our interest rates lower than they otherwise would have been, the bad side is the overvaluing of the dollar, making imports less expensive and our exports more expensive.  That would be a good thing if we were anywhere near full employment, but we aren't and we likely won't be for at least several more years.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Its nice to see you admit that you want the dollar devalued. 

In your strange world, we will be so much better off when it reaches the level of the currency of Zimbabwe.

CARL, comparing a devaluation of the dollar to a healthy level for the economy to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe is like comparing an obese person who needs to go on a diet to someone who suffers from anorexia nervosa.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Its nice to see you admit that you want the dollar devalued.  

In your strange world, we will be so much better off when it reaches the level of the currency of Zimbabwe.

CARL, comparing a devaluation of the dollar to a healthy level for the economy to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe is like comparing an obese person who needs to go on a diet to someone who suffers from anorexia nervosa.

First, there is NO SUCH THING as a "healthy level of inflation"!!!   There is merely bad inflation and worse inflation.  That you are in favor of inflation is no surprise.

CARL, are you one of those weirdos who thinks that bimetallism actually has a snowball's chance in hell of working?  Only someone who subscribes to the theory that objects have an inherent fixed value (which is what would be needed to have bimetalism work) would be likely to confuse currency revaluation with inflation.  The value of the Chinese yuan and the American dollar can only remain at a fixed ratio by means of an artificial peg, such as what the Chinese have been trying to maintain.  Their effort to distort the value of the dollar relative to the yuan so that the dollar is artificially overvalued is one factor that has contributed to our weak economy.

Of the various means to try and stimulate the US economy, dollar devaluation is one of least inflationary, so long as the economy is not near full employment, which ours most decidedly is not.  While its effect of increasing import prices does have a modest inflationary impact, mainly in foreign goods for which no good domestic substitute exists, the increased demand for domestic goods has a negligible effect on inflation unless we are near full employment.

The main problem with currency devaluation is that like tariffs, it is a tool that only works if not everybody tries to do it.  We've allowed the Chinese and other countries to make use of it, and so long as we were near full employment, it was beneficial to our economy to have the dollar overvalued.  That is not the case now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You misunderstanding of currency exchange rates is unsurprising. So, let me try to explain it to you.  If currency A is undergoing inflation (lets call it the American dollar) and currency B is NOT undergoing such inflation (say the Australian or Canadian currency), then the exchange rate will charge, with the American dollar being valued less (over time) relative to the Australian or Canadian currency.  This is one (but not the entire) explanation or exchange rate changes.

Amazing! For once you don't assert that that something economic doesn't have just one factor affecting it!  What your analysis misses is that value is never absolute. (If it were, there would be no such thing as trade,)  Nor is inflation uniform.  I'd go into more detail, but I don't have the time tonight.

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Stating that everything isn't utter doom and gloom is not the same as saying they are great.

As for this Obamamessian junk you keep asserting I believe in, I challenge you to present one single post in which I have ever said that Obama or any other politician is so wise that all we need do to reach paradise is follow his or policies.

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I read it, and it misses one crucial point.  Managing the economy for the short term maximization of producer profit is not the sole desirable goal in economics.  If it were, the analysis given there is spot on save for some subtle hyperbole.

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If anyone tried to shift the valuation that much, there are quite a few ways to get around it.  A dollar than is overvalued to twice what it would be without manipulation may make the math easy for examples, but it could never get that out of balance without producing a black market in currency exchange.  There is no such market for dollar-yuan exchange.

The reason the Chinese have acted to keep their currency undervalued is that for quite some time their primary economic concern has been to increase the number of jobs their economy can provide its people.

For the past couple of years, our primary economic concern has been how to increase the jobs our economy can provide our people.  Currency revaluation is one tool that can be used to achieve that.  As with any economic tool it does have its limits.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Foreclosure filings in the U.S. tumbled last month to the lowest in almost four years, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Thank god "Obamanomics" (whatever that is) is beginning to stop all these W Bush foreclosures.

Unfortunately, this isn't very good news because what matters isn't the drop in foreclosures, but why it is happening. A major reason for the drop is that banks are now having to get their paperwork done right before foreclosing rather than just making assertions vaguely backed up by forms churned out by a lawyer mill.  The real estate bubble has yet to fully deflate.

CARL will of course just claim I'm making an excuse for the "Obamamessiah", but the after effect of this bubble, which popped before Obama was elected, much less in office is one reason why our economy is in trouble.  Our economy is undergoing a major adjustment, and I expect it'll be at least a decade before home construction gets to be anything close to normal again, let alone the abnormal absurdity it reached in the 201st decade.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I lived through stagflation and what we have now is not stagflation, tho it is still far from good.  Thankfully we don't have anyone as incompetent as Burns or Miller were heading the Fed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

ROTFLMAO!

You really need to learn something about the volatility in commodity prices.

Which is exactly why I laugh  when you selectively post isolated bits of economic data.  If you posted all of them, I wouldn't laugh, but I don't recall you ever posting any of the positive ones, just the negative ones.

In any case, the recent corn price drop has nothing to with Obamanomics, either good or bad.  Rather it is good old fashioned classical economics.  Higher prices led to more suppliers seeking those prices, leading to more supply, leading to lower prices.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Posting this only since it has CARL's favorite word in all of economics:

http://www.jsonline.com/business/economy-adds-103000-jobs-but-unemployment-rate-stays-at-91-131333799.html

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Of course, unexpected seems to only be CARL's favorite word when the economic news is worse than expected, so he might not appreciate this.  I don't appreciate it either, but for other reasons. It's an improvement, but it's not anywhere near what we need.  Until the eurozone crisis is resolved, I don't expect the economy to improve, which means the economy will likely be blah until at least 2013 and then whoever wins the election will claim credit for doing something about the economy that they didn't really do.  (That will be true if Obama or a Republican wins next November.)

Of course, it's always possible for the government to do something to make the US economy worse, but I don't foresee anything except gridlock to happen between now and 2013.